Rememberment

Intelligence is a problematic subject to study. For one, it manifests itself in many ways, some of which are difficult to measure. The more we study other animals the smarter they seem to be. But how smart are they exactly is hard to tell, because the way their brains work is so different from ours. What looks to us as play might actually be part of some complex social interaction that we don't understand.  It's not just animals either, as even plants and mushrooms are shown to communicate. But concluding that this is a sign of intelligence isn't easy, because it's so difficult to define what "intelligence" even means in this case. The same issues arise with the possibility of intelligent life outside Earth, only the complexities are even more profound. How could we understand intelligence that has developed in an another world, since we are struggling so much to understand its various forms on our own planet?  Even if we encountered real space aliens, it migh...

I loved spending time with all of my brothers. Ari knew how to tell stories and often took me for a drive. Esa shared my passion for Marvel comics, and we also often watched movies together. And Tapio took me to the lake and taught me how to fish. Being named after the old Finnish god of the forest and hunting suited him better than anyone. He always somehow knew the best fishing spots. And he caught the most as well, no matter if he used the most expensive lures or something he had crafted himself. As a hunter he was equally impressive; moving in the woods was natural to him and he had an amazing ability to figure out where the prey was and how to bring it down. He was also super smart. If there was something wrong with any kind of device in our house, be it a washing machine or a car or one of my toys, it didn't take him long to figure out the problem and fix it. He was also into all kinds of philosophical discussions which tended to go way over my head. But he also had a difficu...

Our youth is under bad influences. Take theatre, for example. According to wise men such as Plato and Aristotle, tragedies will make young men boisterous and comedies turn them into buffoons. The puritanist groups of 17th century England also agreed - they called theatre the "school of vice" and worried that it not only promotes laziness, drunkenness and loss of morals, but might also challenge social order and put all kinds of dangerous passions in the heads of young minds. And what about the printing press? Surely letting people read all kinds of writings without the proper guidance of scholars and priests is a bad idea (that's what authorities were worried about in the 1400s, at least). And don't get me started on romantic novels, which will fill the heads of young women with unrealistic expectations about love and married life - if it was true in the 18th century, it must be true now. A baddie vibing on some OG brain rot. The history of soiling our pants over new ...

Our family spent quite a bit of time watching the telly: back then, pretty much everybody did. We had a black and white TV before moving into the house, but after that our family bought a brand new 19-inch color TV. As we lived in the middle of the woods, the reception wasn't always great. If it got too bad, it was usually Esa who climbed on the roof to adjust the antenna. The TV culture of early 80s was a bit different to what it is now. There were only two channels available, both belonging to the national Yleisradio. There was also a private company called Mainos-TV which didn't yet have their own channel, but would instead rent some screen time from the national television network. My favourite show was Battlestar Galactica. When the weekly episode was on, I was glued to the screen, watching the dwindling remains of humanity fight against the evil robotic Cylons. After the show I either started drawing said robots or building spaceships from the show using Lego blocks. I wa...

Besides having just broken a toe playing beach volley a couple of days ago, I'm not exactly the sportiest of people. Just recently there was a news article about how Ostrobothnians are the fattest people in Finland  and I'm certainly not making that statistic any prettier. But hey, I try - in fact, I'm just picking up a new sport. I'm sure it will get me in shape in no time. I've always had a bit of a problem with sports. If you read my previous post (and if you didn't, why the hell not?) you already know I didn't particularly enjoy the subject when I was in school. Back then, the common practice when forming teams was that the teacher chose two of the most skilled kids as team captains, who then took turns picking members for their team. Being dead last to get selected every time didn't exactly help me fall in love with the game. But that was in the 80s. Surely things have gotten better over the decades? Recent studies show that most students in the low...

Dad got very ill and had to go to the hospital. After he had stayed there for some time, the doctors told us he probably wasn't coming home anymore. I didn't believe them - I was sure God would help him. And eventually Dad did come home, but he was weak. It was clear that he couldn't work anymore and had to retire permanently. This meant that our poor family was now going to be even poorer, and that Mom had to work even harder - not just to earn money, but because she had to care for Dad as well.  Ari started his business and Tapio was working with him in the workshop. It started out pretty well, too, which helped feed our family. But the workshop was also a constant source of fighting - Dad didn't agree with all of Ari's decisions, and Mom didn't agree with either of them. Ari and Tapio also had their quarrels: Ari wasn't the easiest of bosses and Tapio wasn't the easiest of persons overall. I once saw the two of them trading punches, and was so disturb...

Everyone can draw a face, right? Yup, that's clearly a face. Even though it most definitely isn't. Five years ago my kids pulled an April Fools prank on me. During the night they got up quietly and stuck googly eyes on every goddamn thing in the house. That toilet sign still haunts my dreams. Turns out we don't need much in order to see faces where none exist. Something vaguely resembling the eyes and a mouth will suffice. It's called pareidolia - our brains have a natural tendency for pattern recognition, and since faces are so central to our social interactions, it's no wonder we tend to see them everywhere we look. But there's more. In his wonderful book, " Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art ", author Scott McCloud presents another explanation for why the simplified face - the cartoon - is so appealing to us. When we converse with other people, we see their faces in vivid detail. At the same time, we maintain a mental image of how we appear to ...